


Book X - Fortune

by niawen



Series: Heartblind: Apprentice Erin Canon Run [2]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, F/M, Light Whump, Mutual Pining, Novelization, Other, Shippy Gen, Whump, source-appropriate violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27900907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niawen/pseuds/niawen
Summary: Erin and Muriel are too far out to turn back even when it becomes clear that the past Muriel's been so desperate to keep hidden is too much for him to keep the reins of.
Relationships: Apprentice/Muriel (The Arcana)
Series: Heartblind: Apprentice Erin Canon Run [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2043058
Kudos: 5





	1. What's Dead is Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Erin hears the words "Scourge of the South" for the first time when Muriel's not able to run from himself any more.

While Tarske had a life of its own and the noises that came with it, it had been mostly quiet since their arrival a few days ago. Now, the sounds of three distinct voices arguing echoed in the gloom. 

“Fighting him will only get you killed,” Muriel’s deep voice rumbled, though he sounded more scared and desperate than angry. Morga looked on in obvious contempt and Erin tried to mediate between them, though her own face was set with determination.

“So what,” Morga spat, glaring. “You’ll just lay down and die if he tells you to? Why are you even here, boy?”

Erin felt a surge of guilt at that, having convinced Muriel to come with her and leave the safety of his hut and she held up two placating hands in a sign of peace. But she turned to face Muriel who looked more upset than she had ever seen him. “Muriel, I’m not gonna just stand by and let him run amok. I  _ can’t _ . Who knows what he’s up to, getting his hands dirty with all this arcane stuff he doesn’t understand.”

“But you’ll  _ die _ ,” Muriel retorted emphatically, clearly not understanding how she could ignore this fact. “You can’t fight him, he almost killed us today.”

Morga made another very impatient noise but Erin beat her to the punch. “Maybe I can’t fight him head on, maybe I won’t be able to ever. Maybe he will kill me the next time I confront him. But that is  _ not  _ going to stop me from trying.”

He made an emotional, frustrated noise. “It's already too late, he’s going to exploit this,” he gestured broadly between the two of them and Erin suddenly had no idea what he was talking about. “He knows. If you confront him he’ll… he won’t rest… He’ll make me hurt you!”

Erin was silent, her counter argument forgotten, and even Morga was uncharacteristically subdued as Muriel tried to spit the words out, red faced and anxious. He looked so legitimately scared and stressed and Erin had never quite seen him like this before… it was frightening, to an extent, but only because he was so clearly in a tremendous amount of distress.

“What…” Erin’s brows knit tightly, not expecting the outburst from stoic, terse Muriel of all people. “What does that mean? He’ll make you hurt me…?”

Muriel bit his lip and turned away, his face stricken and ashamed. Oddly, Erin heard Morga make a scoffing noise behind her and she cast the older woman a look that wasn’t acknowledged or returned. She looked conflicted, though Morga’s expressions were always a little difficult to read, and Erin could only pin down that she looked somewhere between gravely serious and bitter. 

“That my son would be such a monster to you,” she said tiredly, shaking her head after giving Muriel’s hunched posture a judgemental once-over. “Trust me, he’s not that capable,” Morga finished irritably, her thin lips curled in frustration and then she abruptly turned on her heel. “Figure this out by the time I get back. Give me your choice.” She gave them both a fierce glare that Muriel refused to acknowledge and Erin could only respond with a grim little nod. She left without another word, traipsing off into the heavy vegetation without so much as a backwards glance.

When the forest around them was silent again, Erin took a step forward, leaning slightly to try and catch Muriel’s eyes, but he kept them stubbornly averted. “He can’t make you hurt me, Muriel,” she said matter-of-factly, trying not to invade his space but also unable to leave him to suffer.

To her surprise and growing sense of foreboding, Muriel turned to look at her and she’d never seen his expression before. It was drawn and tense, haunted. Hollow. “He can. He  _ will _ . I… I can’t chase after him and… neither should you…” His chest was starting to rise and fall rapidly with his quick, shallow breaths and Erin realized he was not only in emotional distress, but it was quickly becoming intense physical distress brought on by some kind of trauma... It was so  _ raw _ , watching it on someone else, she thought distantly, thinking of the last time she had suffered a full panic attack. His eyes darted around without really seeing anything and he was breathing like something half drowned, his words were clumsy (moreso than usual) and he honestly looked on like he might be on the verge of tears.

“Muriel, hey,” she urged, quietly, reaching to take his hand in both of hers for a second and run her thumb over his scarred knuckles. “Tell me. Help me understand.”

The touch seemed to anchor him somewhat and his breathing calmed minutely, though he stared at their hands for a long, intense second before he pulled away and ran a hand over his pallid face and through his unruly hair. “I… I can’t,” he muttered after a second, not looking at her.

“Why? Can you just tell me the basics?” Erin persisted, still hovering nearby and unsure how much space to give him when he clearly needed the comfort. “Muriel, I just want to help.”

To her surprise, his lip trembled and he blinked rapidly. He looked more miserable than she had ever seen him and frankly that was saying something. “I can’t… you’ll leave if you know,” he finally whispered, voice low enough to be drowned out by the wind if she hadn’t been standing resolutely by his elbow.

She made a face but tried her best to keep her voice calm and even. “You really think that? You’ve been telling me to go away every chance you get since we met. You don’t really think I’d just up and leave you, do you?”

He finally stopped to look down at her properly, casting her a somewhat nervous glance before he sighed heavily and seated himself on a nearby log. Very reluctantly and very hesitantly, he shook his head a few seconds later, though his mouth was still pursed in a tight line. But then he looked away somewhat guiltily. “I don’t… actually want you to leave,” he muttered.

She flushed before she could quite stop herself, smiling a little sheepishly before inviting herself to sit next to him and put a very platonic hand on his heavy shoulder. “I don’t really want to go, either,” she said. She let the moment hang for a second and then she gave him what she hoped was a bolstering squeeze. “And now that you know, will you tell me what you meant?”

He made that same closed-off expression again, eyes dark and face uncharacteristically gaunt-looking. Erin knew it must be something terrible to prompt this kind of reaction from and his next words made her heart sink.

“The coliseum… in Vesuvia,” he began, his voice rough and choked, still obviously fighting himself on whether he wanted to say anything at all. “I used to fight there. For Lucio.”

It didn’t even sound like the Muriel she knew. But then, she reminded herself sternly, while they had been through a lot, she couldn’t say that she knew him very well. He wasn’t the hardest person in the world to read but he was incredibly closed off and she was only just now starting to get little displays of trust out of him. He watched her face for a second and she gave his shoulder another squeeze.

“So… a gladiator, then?” she asked tentatively when he couldn’t seem to find the words.

Muriel’s face twitched and he grimaced. “An executioner.  _ Lucio’s _ executioner.”

It took a second for the entirety of that to sink in and Erin felt her face fall and her guts give a lurch. To her surprise, he elaborated voluntarily and she could really only listen raptly in swiftly mounting horror.

“They called me the Scourge of the South. He… it was  _ so  _ many people. Over the course of years,” he choked out in a hushed, strangled sort of voice, his teeth gritted and eyes resolutely averted. “Trial-by-combats for petty crimes, glory-hunters looking for blood sport and prize money, Lucio’s personal enemies, sometimes his allies… Anyone he wanted dead, anytime he just wanted to watch someone suffer, they were put in the arena with me. I killed… every single one. No one that was put in with me left alive.”

He slumped and held his skull in his hands for a second, rubbing at his face with an air of complete and total exhaustion. Then he looked at them briefly and dropped them in his lap in disgust. He kept his eyes resolutely averted, unable to look at her after his admission, shame and pain evident on his face. Erin, for her part, wasn’t really sure how to react. What he had admitted to was undeniably horrifying but the way he looked and sounded right now killed her inside. He was obviously haunted, traumatized by this… Suddenly, so much about him just clicked into place. His reluctance to fight, his aversion to being touched, his solitary, isolated lifestyle, the scars, the shackles, his certainty Lucio would come back to haunt him…

“Did you do it willingly?” she asked quietly, after a long, strained moment. Her hand never left his shoulder but she had to know.

He looked down at her abruptly and then turned away, faintly looking like was going to be sick. “No! Lucio… tried to recruit me when I was a teenager and I got away every time he cornered me. But then he found out about Asra… He said he’d torture him. He said he’d put him in the arena in my place and see how long he lasted… I couldn’t…” He made a choked noise and seemed to be fighting back tears in earnest now. “He was my only friend. Ever. So, I couldn’t… I gave in and was Lucio’s personal executioner and champion from that point on. I killed… so many people to keep Asra safe.” 

Erin rather thought her words would be a paltry comfort so for a long time, she didn’t say anything and they sat in silence that was oppressive and heavy. Finally, Muriel hunched forward and smeared his knuckles graceless across his bloodshot eyes. “As soon as I gave you the myrrh… I knew this would happen,” he said miserably. “Now you know what I am. A monster.”

“You’re not a monster,” Erin retorted with sudden vehemence. “You just said you were forced to do it.”

“But I still  _ did _ it! I killed… I don’t even know.  _ Hundreds _ . With my own two hands…” Muriel was distraught and looking at her as though she wasn’t making any sense at all. “Nothing will ever change the fact that I was a killer…”

“Maybe not, but what are you now?,” she said earnestly. “The past happened and you can’t change it...but… you’re still here, you can decide now.”

For a minute, Muriel looked almost affronted by the suggestion he separate himself from the past. “Yeah, maybe you can do that when your past is a big black void,” he grumbled somewhat nastily, turning away and rubbing at his face. “Not when it's this…”

Erin made a pensive face for a second. “I only believe that  _ because _ my past is totally gone,” she clarified a second later. “I have no idea if I was a monster, if I killed people… if it was for a reason or if it was because I had narcissistic delusions of grandeur like Lucio. I really… have no idea. I just woke up in the shop one day. I couldn’t speak, I didn’t know my own name… everything was just… gone. So, really, the only thing I can do is move forward from today, you know? And make sure that what I do now means something.” When she was done she hesitated a second then moved her touch from Muriel’s shoulder to the back of his scarred hand. He tensed and his knuckles were tight on his own leg but he refrained from moving for a few seconds.

But then he sighed heavily, pulling away slowly and unable to shake the intrusive feeling that his past horrors were too grotesque to be so laid bare in front of someone like her. Innocent maybe wasn’t the first word that came to mind when he looked at Erin, but there was a kind of naive determination there to see the best in people… and he didn’t deserve it. A small part of him wished that he could ask for the myrrh back. She would be better off without him, surely, and he wondered if he would be better off without her.

He… liked her, which was strange in and of itself, but she was slowly ingratiating herself to him, breaking down his walls and… He shut his eyes as something in his chest tightened painfully. He just couldn’t let that happen. Even if she meant well and even if she really thought she could help him. She’d only end up hurt in the long run. Just emotionally, if she was lucky. If not…

Watching her absolutely bawling over wolf puppies the day before had been unexpectedly endearing and sparked a highly uncharacteristic warmth to build deep in him somewhere, but now it only reminded him that she was also incredibly vulnerable and only slightly less defenseless. He unwillingly found himself wondering what would happen to her out here with only Morga to keep an eye out and Lucio, now possibly some kind of demon, prowling in the dark. “You can’t make up for what I did,” he said with a miserable finality after a few morose and pensive moments.

“Well… no,” she agreed slowly and he turned to look at her, surprised that her sometimes-frustrating penchant for being optimistic didn’t try to downplay the severity of what he’d done. “But you’re alive now and you still need to make a choice. What do you want to have happen now?” 

It took a second but he looked over at her through a curtain of dark hair and Erin badly wanted to brush it out of his face but restrained herself somehow. On hearing what he’d been through, Erin had first thought the way she saw him would change but she was a little surprised to find that it hadn’t. Well, not in the way she expected at least. She just… felt pain for him. A sadness that he was so hurt and that she had forced him to face someone who had done something so unspeakably terrible to him.

When he couldn’t bring himself to answer after a long moment, she wrung her hands to keep from trying to touch him again, deciding that maybe it was better to keep his space even if her instincts were screaming at her to hug him or  _ something _ . “What’ll happen if you go back home?”

He looked away again. “I’ll survive.”

“So you’ll survive,” she agreed. “But the peryton’s dead because of Lucio and the forest will probably die slowly around you. At that point you would have to decide where to go next. Let’s say that I do get killed going up against Lucio or that I can’t stop him. What’ll happen after that?”

Muriel’s face darkened further still and Erin felt she had pinned down a critical point, not that she was hellbent on bringing him along against his will but he had to face the reality of what was coming, given what he just told her. “He’ll… he’ll come after me,” Muriel admitted reluctantly, his voice so low she had to lean in even closer. “He’ll make me kill for him again… You. Asra.”

“We… might not have known each other all that long,” Erin said a little hesitantly as Muriel watched her carefully, his heavy brow furrowed. “But I… care. A lot. About you. You’re a good person. And you just told me Lucio did something horrific to you that you have to live with every day.” She paused, unsure exactly where she was going with this but wanting to say it just the same. “What you told me doesn’t change anything-” he opened his mouth to argue but she put up a hand and wouldn’t let him. “It doesn’t. I’ve never seen you be anything other than gentle and kindhearted. I trusted you with my life when I asked you to come out here and watch my back while I hunt down Lucio and I wouldn’t go back and change it now, given the opportunity.”

“How can you just-”

She shook her head and plowed on, unwilling to stop now. “And now I have even more reason to find that son of a bitch and make him sorry,” she said fiercely. “I  _ won’t _ let him get away with what he did to you, the peryton, everyone else... And, if I’m being honest with you, I want you with me when I do it. I’m not really experienced in combat or anything but I swear I’ll do whatever I can to protect you.” She paused for a second, running a hand through her unruly hair self consciously. “But you’re the only one who can make that decision. And I’ll respect it, whatever it is.”

Muriel pursed his lips and looked away. “I don’t want you in danger at all,” he grumbled miserably.

Erin smiled a little wanly and leaned to bump her shoulder into his thick arm. “That’s my decision to make. And… I’m going to stop him.”

He was quiet for a long time though eventually he leaned into Erin’s body a little, returning the gesture somewhat tentatively and she tried to pretend she wasn’t flushing a dark shade of pink in the dim lighting. “I guess… No. I want to help you,” he said firmly. “I don’t know what help I can be but… You’re right. He won’t stop hurting people unless we stop him. And I can’t…” He trailed off and then was silent.

“Thanks,” Erin said after a few long moments of quiet. “For telling me all that. For giving me the chance to get to know you when you were trying to keep something like that buried.”

He let out a strained grunt of a laugh. “Dunno what possessed me.” He was quiet again and then: “But… you listened and… I don’t know. Thank you.”


	2. The Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asra had a suspicion but he should have bet someone money. Two introverts get closer.

Morga’s idea of weapons training was simultaneously not as bad as Erin had first imagined and exactly as bad. Morga’s martial expertise was definitely a boon and she was skilled with more than just her own spear. The stick she was having Muriel use as a staff was suspiciously well balanced and sturdy and she had an abundance of knowledge to share. Which was good because Erin couldn’t  _ believe _ how quickly he was meeting her grueling expectations and keeping up with constant drills. She had an untrained eye, sure, but she could tell that Muriel’s only real stumbling block was his own confidence and willingness to hold a weapon at all. Morga had gone from barking about his posture to giving him in depth critiques about reactionary weight shifting which foot to lead with for certain offensive presses in a matter of hours.

Erin supposed that he must have been able to work with a number of weapons when he was Lucio’s gladiator and she recalled from a conversation they’d had that very morning he’d mentioned wielding an axe. Truth be told, she suspected Morga had overheard a great deal of that conversation but Erin decided not to ask or confront her about it as it really served no purpose and maintaining the peace between the three of them was frankly more important. 

But things had… changed somewhat over the last short while. Morga, impatient and intolerant as always, tossed two daggers down at their feet after they’d set up camp. “You need to spar with each other,” she ordered, looking them both over fiercely. “One of you has no experience to speak of-” she glared at Erin who, despite her very best efforts, flushed pink with embarrassment. “And the other has gone soft and rusty. It’s a damn waste.” She glared at Muriel.

Erin gestured to her bow and then vaguely in Muriel’s general direction. “But… close range like that? With real daggers?”

She made an impatient noise. “Do you think I’d waste my time carrying dull practice knives around with me? Don’t be stupid. You’ll need to defend yourself at a close range, even as an archer, but to be honest, you just need the experience period.”

Muriel shook his head, his brows pulling down in a mix of concern and something close to anger. “You said I wouldn’t have to use anything sharp.”

Erin felt the rise in tension palpably as Morga rounded on him. “Don’t be weak, you need the training almost as much as she does,” she sneered, glaring straight up into Muriel’s face and not intimidated by his quiet fury in the slightest. “How do you expect to fight Erin if you don’t use a real weapon?”

“Morga,” Erin began, trying to sound firm and unintimidated but Muriel jerked as though he’d been slapped and both of them looked over to him at the same time.

“ _ Fight _ her?” he repeated thickly. Then he abruptly backed up a pace and Erin’s instincts were flaring to life. He started to bring up his arms though the movement wasn’t wholly aggressive  _ or _ defensive and his face was completely bloodless. Erin tried to move into his direct line of sight to try and bring him down- he looked like he was about to pass out or be violently sick and she ignored Morga’s noise of impatience for a second.

“Muriel,” Erin said, in a falsely neutral tone that covered her sudden anxiety moderately well, “No one said-”

Morga clicked her tongue impatiently and shouldered past Erin to get closer into Muriel’s space. “We already had this conversation,  _ boy _ . You said you were going to confront Lucio. But now you’ve lost whatever spine you had left and you’re just going to let him win? If you don’t fight her you’ll never get back to your old level-!”

Erin realized what that was going to do before it had fully sunk in and she injected herself between them again stubbornly. “Morga,  _ lay off _ ,” she snapped loudly, winning her a filthy, impatient glare from the older woman and the beginning of an indignant retort. Muriel, for his part, however, backed up another pace and still looked pale as a sheet.

“I’m not gonna fight Erin,” he said stubbornly, but from the way his eyes were darting nervously between them Erin was starting to doubt he was going to stay rational given the state of his anxiety. “I’m not gonna…”

“Fool,” Morga snarled back, clearly fed up with his refusal. “How else are you going to learn how to fight!?”

“I already know how to fight!” Muriel suddenly flung back, livid, his voice loud and legitimately furious. Erin had never seen him look so angry, nor had she heard him yell before and she would have been lying through her teeth if she said it didn’t inspire a cold dread to squeeze at her insides. “I won’t hurt her!” he snarled over Morga’s retort. His eyes darted to Erin, who was already in the process of telling Morga to  _ please _ shut the hell up for a few seconds and looking decidedly stressed between them.

It was too easy to imagine. Her, covered in blood at his doing. An uncontrolled swing, a reflexive motion too strong to stop. The staff, the dagger, the axe… it didn’t matter, he was more than deadly with all of them. Especially against a green idealist like her. She wouldn’t understand what she was getting into, she  _ didn’t _ understand, she would throw herself into it, she would want to prove herself and he… he was just a mess of ingrained reflexes and a lifetime of forced violence. 

For a second he was on the sands again, overgrown hair hanging in his face, heavy axe braced on one huge shoulder and a body gripped in his free hand. The smell of blood was overpowering but it wasn’t his blood so it didn’t matter. His victim… was drenched in it. A woman. Short. Round face horrifically lacerated from the force of the blow that had sent her into the ground, mismatched eyes open but blank and glassy with bodily trauma, probably dead… But if not she would be soon, the axe had done gruesome and  _ very _ fatal damage to her torso and the crowd roared its approval… then there was Lucio looking on smugly from one of the box seats-

Muriel came back to himself, Erin standing right in front of him and trying to get through to him. There was the faintest touch of her fingertips against his arm but like an electric shock and he staggered back clumsily, holding his arm against himself protectively. He took one jagged breath, still trying to blink away the vision of her dead in the arena superimposed over her worried face, but suddenly he knew the risk of staying was too much and he turned on his heel and  _ ran _ without another word.

“Muriel!” Erin shouted in alarm, dumbstruck and standing stupidly for a second. Then she lunged for her bow and plunged into the darkness after him. “Shit! Muriel!!”

She sprinted past Morga, who was watching with a suddenly exhausted expression, Inanna hot on her heels.

It was pitch black outside the campfire and Erin quickly conjured a wobbly ball of light, she slowed to a jog but couldn’t hear anything except the wind and in the few hundred feet since the camp’s dim light, she’d already lost track of Inanna. “Muriel,” she choked out, almost afraid to yell, afraid of what could be just outside of her cramped field of view. But there was nothing. She trotted a few more paces and forced herself to suck in a deep breath, calling out again.

Inanna found him first, her howl loud and long in the blackness and Erin oriented herself as best as she could and followed. When she could finally make out the wolf’s huge form in the dark, she nearly gave choked sob in relief. Behind her was a large shape, huddled close to the ground and without any more prompting, Erin went to him quickly. The noise must have alerted him long before her light but he didn’t react to her presence until she was kneeling down next to him. He was sitting, hunched and crosslegged, arms crossed protectively around his chest. He was slow to look up at her but when he did Erin felt a painful lump in her throat at the look on his face.

“Go away,” he said miserably, pulling his gaze away from her with some effort. Of course she noticed that his eyes were red and his lips were pursed into a miserable line. She reached out immediately, prompted to try and offer comfort but he flinched away from her hand and she paused reluctantly. The reactive movement forced him to uncoil just a little but he was resolutely leaning away from her. “ _ Please. _ Go away.” His voice was strangled and choked, barely above a whisper and the quiet, pleading words paired with the sound of him so distraught felt like a stake through Erin’s heart.

The wind was low and hollow and it only emphasized how vast and open everything was here. She knew that he  _ did _ want to be left alone, hunched and shuddering on the icy ground but.... She just couldn’t. She slung her bow over her shoulder and cupped the small, flickering ball of light in her hand, glowing a warm orange in a thin halo around them. It dimmed a little and she lowered herself to sit next to him, not close enough to touch, but near enough to just feel his heat as he huddled in his cloak.

They were quiet for a long time, wind rolling over the open tundra under a clear, deep indigo sky. It was beautiful and empty and Erin found it incredibly alien but the cold was gnawing at her face and limbs a little too much to appreciate it just then. Not to mention the sadness and anxiety eating her inside as it radiated off the bulky figure beside her. She didn’t say anything, letting him have the space and quiet he seemed to want, but after several tense minutes he made a miserable little noise.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he practically whispered before, after another few seconds, he cast a miserable, tentative glance her way.

Erin pulled her cloak around herself more tightly, feeling even colder that he was so close but wanted his space. She couldn’t fault him that, of course, but everything she knew about comfort and healing demanded that she reach out to him, and it was a struggle to let him be. “I know,” she answered simply a few seconds later, feeling any further attempts to elaborate would just end in her rambling.

“How can you know that?” he pressed, looking half torn between misery and challenge. “I told you… about what I did. How many people I’ve hurt. You’re alone with me all the time, you gave me a weapon… you’re so…  _ vulnerable. _ If… If I hurt you, you wouldn’t be able to stop me. Morga wouldn’t be able to stop me. No one could…”

Erin never assumed she had all the answers but the words came to her quickly, and she felt them strongly. “I trust you, Muriel. If you tell me you don’t want to hurt me, then that’s the truth as far as I care.” She looked at him and sighed through her nose a little… he was so hurt and so miserable, it was hard to look at him like this. Harder still because he seemed determined to push her away. “I trust you, and you haven’t done anything to betray that.”

He looked away again and his breathing was jagged and agonized. “I don’t trust myself.”

Erin felt an emphatic rush at that, her heart clenching and her eyes watering fiercely. 

He looked at his hands, resting limp in his lap and then, after a second, he brought them up higher, studying his palms intently for a moment and the metal links attached to his shackles clinked coldly. “You shouldn’t trust me, either. I’ll hurt you. I’m a killer. I’m a monster-”

Erin swallowed the lump in her throat. She meant to sound stronger but the cold and the sadness were stifling and she sounded more pleading than anything when she tried to cut him off. “You’re  _ not _ a monster, even if you’ve killed, Muriel. Someone made you do something terrible but that doesn’t mean-”

“It's what I am,” he said firmly, with absolute conviction, quiet and pained though it was. To her rising panic he leaned to the side, further away and, after a second, made to stand. “I… I have to leave. You’re too important. Too much is riding on you. Don’t… don’t you get it?” He choked down another ragged breath and was on his feet in another instant, leaving a sick, pitching feeling in Erin’s guts as she scrambled to do the same. “Don’t… come after me, this time. I’m begging you…” He spared her one glance, eyes rimmed red and his mouth a shaky, miserable line and then turned away resolutely.. 

Erin lunged after him, surprisingly dextrous and grabbed two huge, tight handfuls of his cloak, pulling him back, keeping him from running. She floundered stupidly… she had to say something,  _ anything _ … She selfishly wanted him to stay, she couldn’t bear the thought of him returning to being miserable and isolated in the woods, punishing himself for something he didn't deserve to bear all the burden for. And… the way he made her feel… the moments they shared when they were alone… Losing that, losing him… It was  _ unbearable _ .

His hands were coming up to pry hers away and the feel of his calloused fingertips on her cold skin convinced her to do something drastic. She yanked, hard, and pulled him into an awkward hunch, rising to her toes at the same time and kissed him, squeezing her eyes closed tight to keep from seeing the rejection no doubt forming on his face… She felt him freeze and heard him gasp softly against her, his lips parted beneath hers and felt his hands come up awkwardly to hover indecisively around her shoulders.

When she finally pulled back, all the things she wanted to say just kind of evaporated and she stared up at him in the near-darkness, gulping down air and breathing heavily (embarrassingly so). He was flushed crimson, even in the dark, though his expression was hard to read. Disbelief and uncertainty were present, but there was something cautious and (she hoped she wasn’t reading him wrong) tentatively hopeful. Her breath clouded in front of her in little puffs and she didn’t let go, her knuckles bloodless with her demanding grip on his heavy cloak. For his part, he didn’t move to straighten up for long seconds… and then his eyes locked on her mouth and he leaned in again, nervously. Hesitantly.

Erin didn’t need another sign. She craned up again, coming in much slower than she had the first time and, to her shock and private elation, he moved to close the gap and their lips pressed together much more tenderly than before. He angled slightly and his nose pressed softly against her, his breath quiet and warm and Erin thought she must be feeling things wrong when he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her in tight enough to press their bodies together. They both adjusted to the closeness at the same time- his hands slid down and he wrapped his arms around the small of her back, and at the same time she reached up to tangle her hands in his hair...

It was so incredibly warm despite the bitter-to-the-bone coldness of the frozen ground and biting wind… Erin was distantly amazed at how comfortable she was. She thought of Muriel in the palace gardens those weeks ago, and then later when he had fallen asleep against her… Erin had wanted this so much more than she had acknowledged to herself and she had to fight not to tighten her grip too greedily. After long moments, they-  _ very _ hesitantly- pulled apart and for a second, they just stared at each other, breathing heavily and flushing like hell.

Then the gravity of what she’d done started to dawn on her. “I’m… sorry,” she sputtered, holding her hands up. “I didn’t mean…”

Muriel’s face went from flushed to downright alarmed a second later and he pulled his hands away quickly. Muriel looked at her with wide, confused eyes and a dark flush that stained his whole face and throat. “Why…are you apologizing? Didn’t you… mean...? But...”

Erin mouthed stupidly, trying to explain. “I… was scared you were going to leave for good… I panicked and… I just...” she sputtered, staring up at him redfaced. “I want you… with me.”

“So… you kissed me,” he muttered slowly, uncomprehending.

Erin’s face burned and she felt increasingly stupid for having thrown herself on him like that, even if she couldn’t bring herself to regret it. “ _ I trust you _ . Fully. And I know you think I’m… naive but the truth is you’ve more than earned it, Muriel. I can’t stop you, if you really want to leave. But please don’t let it be because you think you’re a danger to me. You’re just not.”

He seemed to consider this for a long moment and they were quiet for a time, though they were both deeply flushed. After a second Muriel looked up and Erin mimicked him, noticing for the first time the strange greenish glow that was painting her surroundings. The sky, utterly cloudless and full of more stars than Erin had ever seen, was streaked with green and blue lights that shifted and rippled like a sunbeam through water and she felt herself give a sharp little gasp at the sight. Paintings and sketches did the aurora no justice. The colors were ethereal and constantly shifting, the movement was otherworldly and it cast a strange, unearthly glow over them and the vast tundra that spread out on all sides as far as the eye could see.

She cast what she hoped was a surreptitious glance up at him… he looked more pensive then miserable in that second, and she supposed she was grateful for that. His eyes were fixed on the rippling lights above and, for a second, he looked so uncharacteristically peaceful that Erin felt warmth in her chest like a low flame. His resilience, his unwavering resistance to all the things that tried to snuff out the light in him, his willingness to come out here into the birthhome he didn’t remember to confront the man who broke him was beyond impressive to Erin. And that Muriel had only second guessed their mission when Erin’s physical safety was a concern, made something flustered and self conscious bubble in her. 

Unable to suppress her overpowering need to have him understand where she stood and how strongly she had come to care about him, trauma and all, she turned towards him and reached for him again. It was slow, slow enough for him to back away, and she gently grabbed his forearm. He didn’t move, except to look back down at her with a nervous but undeniably permissive expression, so she moved her other hand to the place where his neck curved into his muscular shoulder… she really couldn’t look him in the face for more than a second or two given how absolutely flustered they both were but it was hard to miss that the customary furrow to his brow had released and his eyes were wide with a kind of wonder and all Erin could think about was how she damn well did not deserve to be looked at like that. He watched her for a second, his expression soft, and then bent in willingly when she leaned in closer and stretched up and this time, the kiss was all softness and gentility and full of intent. From both of them.

When she pulled back several extended moments later, flushed and breathing heavily, she forced herself to look up into his red face. “I  _ did _ mean it,” she said with an almost undue amount of intensity. “You’re a good man. I like being around you. But I also know that you’ve been through hell and I don’t want to do anything that will hurt you.”

He was flushed so dark and his lips were so tightly pursed that Erin had to take a second to marvel internally that he had reciprocated  _ at all. _ “I’m… I don’t understand you,” he finally finished..

Erin shrugged but smirked a little. “I’m easy to understand. You’re strong, and not just-” she imitated flexing her biceps and Muriel rolled his eyes. “You’ve suffered so much and you’re still out here with me, trying to make things right, watching out for me… That takes an unbelievable amount of strength… It means a lot. To me.”

He looked like he wanted to argue but decided against it after a long moment and finally turned back to the aurora overhead. Erin mirrored him for a second but then noticed something seemed suddenly different about his silhouette… she wouldn’t have been able to tell without the aurora’s soft lighting but after another second it clicked. “Your chains!” she said loudly, making him jump.

He looked at her, bewildered for a second, but then he brought his hands up. Sure enough, his wrists- horrifically scarred from years under iron were free of the extra weight. Muriel could really only stare in part bald shock, part amazement, rotating them slowly and rubbing gently at the abused flesh. Then he raised his hands to his throat, absolutely dumbstruck by the absence of the huge metal collar he’d worn for over a decade. He shifted his stance to face Erin in an uncharacteristically emotive mix of elation and shock but his foot his something metallic and he paused.

They both looked down to find the fetters in a pile at his feet, somehow looking smaller and less threatening as a pile of old and pitted iron, the burden they symbolized didn’t seem so crushing like this. To Erin’s surprise, Muriel bent down and picked them up, holding the heavy collar up to examine in the wan light of the aurora. Then, with a small noise of exertion, he reeled his arm back an hurled it, then the manacles, as far away from himself as he could. They disappeared into the darkness and he let out a triumphant laugh. It was quiet, but the genuine and Erin felt herself mimic the broad, relieved smile on his face. At least for a few seconds until he turned to look at her again, his expression fiercely appreciative and amazed. She swallowed nervously and felt herself flush a ridiculous shade, consumed again by the feeling she did nothing to deserve being looked at like that.

He grew redder as well but was still smiling slightly. He looked at his feet and then back out into the endless darkness and let out a quiet, satisfied noise. “Thank you.”

Erin held up her hands quickly. “I didn’t do anything, you… you managed that all by yourself.”

“I’m not so sure,” he replied slowly. “But… even beyond that. Thank you. For… everything. You’re a lot stronger than you think you are.”

Erin flushed incredibly hot at that and had to clear her throat nervously. But Muriel seemed determined to speak his mind, for once, and he shifted self consciously for a moment before continuing. “No, I mean it. You’ve done nothing but stick your neck out for me, helped me… deal with my problems instead of letting me run and hide. I don’t know what I’m doing out here but I… When you said you wanted to stop Lucio I just… had this weird feeling that you could do it. And I wanted to be there to see it.”

“Muriel…”

“But I want to help, if I can. He needs to be stopped and I’m not… Morga’s right, I’m rusty and the last time I fought Lucio he tore my side open and I might have passed out in the forest somewhere if you hadn’t followed Inanna. But I’m here anyway and I want to help. You said you’d do your best to protect me.... We’ll,” he paused, looking for the words and then, a few seconds later, managed to push through the rest. “We’ll keep each other safe.”

Erin couldn’t help but grin broadly at that, though she looked away bashfully and ran a hand through her unruly hair self consciously. “Does that mean you’re okay with going back to camp?” she asked, somewhat playfully in an effort to divert the gravity of the situation.

He looked away sheepishly. “Yes. I shouldn’t… have run off and made you come after me.”

Erin cocked her head and pursed her lips thoughtfully. “And does that mean you’ll be willing to spar with me?”

“No weapons,” Muriel said immediately and firmly. “Barehanded… might be the best I can do. But… I’ll try.” 

She smiled but then snorted. “Morga will just have to deal with that, I think.”

Muriel frowned thoughtfully. “She doesn’t make any of this easy.”

To his surprise, Erin made a face of silent agreement. “She really doesn’t. But she’ll understand, I think.” Erin felt like maybe she was pushing her luck after everything that had just happened, but she reached out to him as she moved to leave, subtly wondering if he would oblige her. To her pleasant surprise, he did, taking her hand and letting her lead him back towards the campsite, Inanna loping ahead of them.


	3. Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erin tries to get more of Muriel's past, Muriel's not sure what purpose that serves.

Erin had been wanting to say something since that night he’d run off, but with things the way they were she couldn’t seem to find the timing. Not to mention Morga was usually barking at them to keep with their training or gather supplies for camp.

Training with Muriel at a closer range was more gratifying than she had really expected. He was far past her in terms of skill but his reluctance to engage did require a slower partner. And, though she seemed incredibly irritated by it, Morga had acquiesced to Muriel’s firm denial of bladed or other weapons. Presently, Muriel was on the defensive, standing somewhat stiffly as Morga barked instructions at Erin as she threw experimental punches that Muriel kept catching or deflecting with ease. When Morga finally got fed up with watching their slow progress she stood abruptly and announced she was going to take watch.

She always sort of maintained a perimeter when doing so and Erin took the opportunity to consider attempting to initiate a difficult conversation that she’d been meaning to have with Muriel. Ever since he had run from camp she’d been ruminating on what he’d told her before that, about the coliseum, and about how maybe she didn’t have as good a grasp on what that meant as she thought she did.

Since the kiss, things between them had changed somewhat and Erin found this both thrilling and a little nerve wracking. He finally seemed to be willing to trust her to an extent and he seemed to have decided to let most of his guard down around her. He found comfort in being nearer when they took their few hours’ rest and now laying their bedrolls next to each other at night was the new normal. Erin had noticed Morga eyeing them shrewdly but so far the huntress had yet to make any comment, thank the gods. 

With Morga on watch and a few hours to rest, Erin knew she wasn’t likely to get a better opportunity to ask. When Muriel had stoked the fire to a height that managed to offer some warmth in the piercing cold, he moved and seated himself next to her, though not close enough to touch (he was still absolutely skittish about touching and frankly, Erin was too so going slowly and carefully seemed to be how things were going to be, not that she was complaining). He was, however, so close that a few folds of his cloak pooled over her hand.

They sat in companionable silence for a while but then Erin’s thoughts couldn’t be kept in any longer and she shifted a little restlessly. “I wanted to ask you something,” she started slowly, pursing her lips thoughtfully as Muriel turned to look at her. She pretended that she didn’t notice the way those looks had softened in so short a time... Sure they were still furtive and he was still very guarded when Morga was near, but when they were alone like this… She flushed before she could divert his attention and she coughed a little nervously.

“I wanted to ask about… your past,” she elaborated, looking back at him and offering a half smile before quickly continuing. “But if you don’t want to talk about it… I won’t bring it up again.”

He pursed his lips and the walls came back up for a second as he deliberated, crossing his arms over his chest tightly and watching her through some of the loose hair that had slipped out of the casual knot at the base of his skull. He made a pensive noise deep in his throat and after a second and Erin could see the stress and worry on his face intensify immediately.

She gave him a few seconds to process this without prompting, not wanting to push him. After a long moment, he hugged his cloak around himself tighter. “Why?” he asked, and it was fairly clear from his tone that he was concerned. Worried she had second thoughts about… everything… worried that she hadn’t meant for him to think he could be so close to her. Maybe she had thought about what he’d said about how vulnerable she was, alone with him constantly and now sleeping a few inches apart like he was just some normal, harmless person…

Doing her best to broadcast that she was still just as comfortable around him always, she stretched and made to lay down finally, resting on her side and too cold to stay sitting up. She had the faint notion that if she seemed more relaxed, Muriel might find that less… invasive possibly. “Honestly… I can’t stop thinking about what you told me and… I don’t know, it isn’t hard to see how that scars a person. But then something you said made me think…” she started carefully, trying to be earnest but also careful in her wording. He was showing so much trust with her these days, and frankly all she wanted was to strengthen their bond.

Muriel seemed to be letting her continue, not shutting down the entire conversation immediately and Erin took the opportunity while it was on the table, even though he was eyeing her nervously.

“You said,” she went on, watching Muriel’s very guarded expression, “that you’d been living in the forest for ten full years. That means you went there after escaping the coliseum?”

He nodded, allowing her to put together what she’d learned so far but he was reluctant to offer anything new.

“And then, the other day, you said that your chains were leftover from the arena… so that means you’ve been wearing them for longer than ten years?”

He nodded again, flushing in humiliation and feeling like a freak, a monster, to have survived such an awful life and then find himself working together with someone so… normal. He jumped suddenly when she reached out and tentatively touched the band of deep scars that haloed the wrist closest to her, frowning tightly.

“Does it hurt?” she asked, pulling away slightly and watching his reaction closely. 

He grunted and shook his head. “Not for a long time.”

“Will you tell me? What it was like?” she said after a second, her eyes gentle but trained on him, even as she huddled up in her cloak on the frozen ground. “You’ve told me a little but I want to understand...: How did it happen? How long were you there? How come Asra didn’t try to save you?”

“Asra didn’t know…” Muriel answered immediately, prompted to defend Asra even if he didn’t really want to talk about this. “I mean, he did but I never really gave him any of the details. I knew how much he would have hated what I was doing, there was no reason for him to see what I was doing first hand… so I lied or diverted him as much as I could.” 

“But he never asked?” Erin pressed, thinking hard. “He… when he told me you grew up together, he made it sound like it would have been impossible to miss that.”

“Lucio is… more cunning than he seems at first glance, at least when he wants something,” Muriel sighed. He looked away for a second and then took a deep breath. “He tried to recruit me as an arena fighter more than once… I was, I don’t know, maybe thirteen at the time but bigger than all the other urchins. At first he would corner me and ask and I’d say no and he’d let me go. A few times he… saved me by chasing off groups of other kids or an adult that caught me stealing food but he always used it as leverage to try to get me to go with him to the coliseum.”

“Did Arsa know then?”

“No, he had his own problems to worry about at the time and I didn’t want him to think he needed to watch over me with Lucio dogging my steps everywhere,” Muriel held himself a little tighter and looked down blankly at his lap. “I came back to the docks one night and found Lucio just standing there… he held a finger to his lips and pointed downward. Asra… Asra didn’t know he was there. He was just playing with a handful of magic lights right below where Lucio was standing, right in front of the place where we slept… Lucio left that night but I knew he’d be back.” 

“Did he? Come back, that is?” Erin asked, impressed that Muriel had already divulged so much. She was also hanging on his every word, tense with growing dread at where this was headed.

“He caught me the next night, roughed me up a little for trying his patience, I guess. Then he… cut right to the chase. He said he was ending the night with a new arena fighter or he was going to get one of the courtiers to destroy the docks and put Asra in a cell forever. He said… I could avoid all that if I just agreed to what he wanted.”

“So he strong-armed you from the beginning then…” Erin concluded out loud. “Why did he do all that just to pick up a scrawny kid living on the street? I thought the coliseum was incredibly popular during his whole reign, didn’t he have a waitlist of people who wanted to fight?”

Muriel gave a bitter, quiet laugh. “He had something specific in mind for me. He was preparing to release a rival from prison, don’t ask me about their relationship, I have no idea what it was. Lucio threw him in jail for some imagined crime and cooked up this big scheme to make a show of power and political mercy to an old  _ friend _ ,” he spat the word. “So he agreed to release him on the condition he could win a trial by combat in the arena…”

Erin made a face. “You can’t mean...”

Muriel looked away bitterly. “He had to win seven rounds for his freedom. Lucio had set me in a room at dawn with more food than I’d ever seen, he told me I could eat my fill then they gave me a place to sleep until the fights started… I… had no idea what was happening until the last round.”

With a grimace, Erin sighed heavily. It was hard to imagine but knowing what she did of Lucio, it almost wasn’t.

“They threw me in, everyone was shouting and the audience was frothing at the mouth. I was the last thing standing in the way of this man’s freedom. I didn’t want to fight… but…”

“You had to,” she finished for him. “It's more… calculating than I would have given Lucio credit for. He would have come out ahead no matter what the outcome and his rival either dies and is written off as weak and guilty or he’s known as a child-murderer forever.”

Muriel shifted uncomfortably, his skull tipping slightly and some errant hair falling into his strained face. “Everyone was screaming at me to grab a weapon and fight… He was already exhausted, wounded, but I didn’t… I didn’t know, I was scared for my life. He threw me on the ground. Strangled me. I just…”

Erin reached for his hand and squeezed. It made him stop for a second, the haunted look in his face fading just a tiny increment as he looked down at her. But then his expression hardened again and he closed his eyes tightly for a second. He swallowed heavily, compelled to finish the story now that he’d started, maybe against his better judgement. Erin had really been nothing but accepting so far, and he’d never told a soul what those early Scourge years had been like. He bit his lip for a second and then pushed himself to finish. “There was a hand axe he’d dropped when we went to the dirt… I grabbed it. I hit him with it as hard as I could and he just… it killed him.”

Erin exhaled heavily through her nose and was quiet for a long minute as Muriel tried to regain control over the tremor in his voice. There weren’t really words and through the ache she felt at picturing a kid-sized Muriel being forced through this, her desire to punch the teeth out of Lucio’s skull burned all the hotter. She refused to let go of his hand though, and went so far as to pull it under her cheek and lay against it, even if she couldn’t keep another heavy sigh she let out to herself.

“I’m a-”

“Don’t you fucking say it,” she warned quietly, nuzzling against his hand to remind him that- at the very least- he wasn’t alone with these horrible memories. “Everything you tell me just keeps confirming what I already thought.”

He looked down at her with an expression that was partially defeated and partially steeped in old pain. She could tell he wanted to argue but ever since he’d divulged his past she had stubbornly corrected him every time he tried to conclude he was a monster. 

Muriel found it partially frustrating but it was also confusing. She was so certain, so adamant. What else could he be if he’d murdered someone at thirteen? And the years it took him to break free of the mental abuse that held him there stronger than any of the chains permanently affixed to his body? It was a symptom of a weakness that ran so deep it caused even more deaths…

She could tell he was still ascribing that word to himself internally and she pushed harder into his hand and reached out for him with the other, frowning. “I have never once felt like you were a threat to me. My heart, possibly, with your stupid handsome face but-”

He made an irritable noise that was more embarrassed than anything, cheeks turning red though some of the moroseness from their previous conversation still lingered in his knit brows. “Sh-shut up with that,” he grumbled, looking away and fidgeting self-consciously.

She was still reaching out awkwardly and she made a grabby motion with her hand a few times. “Lay down, you need to rest too. Sorry I brought all that up… I just… want to understand,” she said, reaching a little more to grab the edge of his cloak and gently tugged him closer. 

He still looked flustered but after a second he moved, slowly laying on his side facing her. He was conflicted and wasn’t sure what to say then… he was ashamed of his past, broken by it… It was work to avoid reliving it every day. He could maybe understand her wanting to know to make sure she was safe around him but he didn’t understand this curiosity. Like she was interested more for his sake than her own.

While they had started laying out their bedrolls side by side, they hadn’t fully crossed the border into sleeping together really, though occasionally one of them would reach out when the other returned from taking watch, as though making sure they got to bed in one piece. Muriel was embarrassed to say he found it comforting as awful sleep habits had been a curse for as long as he could remember. Sure he was sleeping out on open ground and in the freezing cold but he was actually sleeping in those scant hours, not comfortably, but enough. More than he had those first few weeks.

“It’s…” he said quietly, not sure exactly how he felt. “It's okay. I just… It scares me.”

“That you’ll somehow fall back to that?” Erin asked, frowning thoughtfully as she obviously felt that was highly unlikely.

Muriel shook his head and sighed, frustrated that the words were so hard to parse out. “It scares me that Lucio’s running around out here... that he knows we’re coming after him. It scares me that I know exactly what he’ll do to me if we can’t stop him, what that means for you… And even without Lucio… it still scares me. Every reflex, every reactive instinct… I’m made to hurt people, to cause damage. And before you tell me I’m not-” he went on, slightly louder as Erin opened her mouth to argue, “he threw me in the arena so he could watch me fight for my life. But I kept surviving. Every time he thought he’d thrown in something that would kill me, I ended up killing it instead. Injured, cut to ribbons, with smashed bones… but alive. It happened so much for so long that it stopped being so much of a struggle unless I made Lucio mad and it just… cut away the parts of me that weren’t necessary to survive.”

“Listen to me,” she said firmly and he was surprised by her tone. It was downright obstinate. “Healing isn’t easy. It's a lot of hard work, and sometimes it doesn’t perfectly erase damage done, but it is  _ always _ possible.” She reached out somewhat awkwardly and grabbed his face with two hands and it might have been comical (especially with his sudden expression of nervous embarrassment) but the confidence (bravado?) in her voice demanded he listen and for a few seconds, it was really all he could do. “You have a lot of healing to do, Muriel. But you’re doing it, little by little. Lucio can’t permanently ruin you, that’s not how hearts or minds or whatever even works. Be wary, be afraid, if that’s what you feel, but don’t give in to that feeling that thinks you’re less of a person because of what he did to you.”

Muriel just stared at her for a minute, face red and hot but he was undeniably processing what she’d said. But then he averted his eyes a little and flushed even deeper. “You… do you really think that?” he asked quietly. “He… made me live like an animal. I was kept in a cage. Chained. Collared. Leashed. I either did what he told me or exposed Asra, or he’d make sure I ended up hurt and weakened for the next, worse fight. Any time he thought it was too easy for me, obedient or not, he’d make it worse… How am I supposed to… after that…”

“You’re already working at it. You’re out here with me, we’re going to stop Lucio from hurting others,” she said, rubbing her thumb against his stubbled cheek affectionately. “You’re not his obedient executioner, you’re not a mindless killing machine, of course you weren’t made to hurt or destroy, even if someone forced you to learn those things.”

For a long minute, he was quiet, and then he sighed heavily. “How do you always have all the answers?” He sounded partially thankful, but also partially morose and she keyed into that quickly.

Erin pursed her lips. “Hells, don’t think that. I don’t have any answers, not even for my own problems. I’m a mess, I have three years’ life experience total and I spent more than half of it locked away indoors and having panic attacks and being a general burden. I used to be really smart, so I hear, but I’m… just this now. I just… get really strong feelings about some things,” she let out a scoffing laugh that was tinged with a tiny note of bitterness. But she looked up at him earnestly. “If you could see your strength and all you’re trying to accomplish from where I’m standing, you’d feel the same way.”

He seemed to consider this for a long while, relaxing as she moved into a position that was more comfortable for sleep, though she kept his hand against her body. “I can clearly see you’re a good person, even if you were forced to do something horrific. We can’t change your past but we can make sure no one else has to go through what you did.” 

“You keep saying ‘we’,” Muriel pointed out. “And I don’t understand. Wanting to keep Lucio from doing… whatever he’s up to makes sense, but you going out of your way to try and make sense of my past doesn’t.”

To his surprise she laughed a little bit. “Remember the strong feelings thing? Lucio singled you out as a kid and forced you through dehumanizing trauma and pain that would have killed someone weaker than you. He did it because he was bored! He needs to get his ass beat and I’m more than happy to teach him a lesson he’ll never forget. It's justice and it won’t come unless we take action ourselves.”

“But still,” Muriel went on contemplatively, finally relaxing just slightly. “All of these stories about what he did to me… they can’t really help. At… at worst you’ll see what a diaster-” he used a different word this time than monster, still wishing to communicate the dangerous context but not willing to cause another argument just then, “- and at best you’ll just be burdened by knowing.”

Erin gave a theatrical, frustrated groan. “Nothing about you is a burden, Muriel. Maybe one day you’ll finally realize that I like you. I like being around you. Your past only hurts me because it hurts to imagine you suffering, especially for something stupid as Lucio’s insatiable ego.” She rolled on her back and stared at the sky for a few quiet minutes and Muriel was content to do the same next to her- though the knit to his brows released subtly as he seemed finally placated by that, at least to some degree. “Plus” she went on after a second, “this only makes me more sure of myself. I’m gonna to beat his ass with my bare hands.”

“Tactically speaking, that’s pretty stupid,” Muriel rumbled, trying to keep the smirk off his lips. “You’re a spell caster, you’re most dangerous at a range.”

Erin made an affronted noise. “Everyone always thinks magic’s so great but all they appreciate is the sparks and fire. I want to punch him. Many times. Hitting him with a spectral arrow won’t be nearly as viscerally satisfying.”

Muriel snorted, he couldn’t help himself. “When everything’s said and done we can take a couple turns holding him down.” He actually had to cover his mouth with his hand to keep from actually laughing allowed at the look of fierce, unrepentant delight on Erin’s round face.


End file.
